Waterbury has long been plagued by a reputation for blight. The Brass City long lacked a coherent anti-blight strategy, and the 2010-11 time-theft scandal involving former Mayor Michael J. Jarjura and former chief blight enforcement official Joseph "Capt. Blight" Davino made matters worse. The situation undoubtedly complicated efforts to bring businesses and jobs to the Brass City.

During his 2011 campaign, current Mayor Neil M. O'Leary vowed to take on the blight problem with a vengeance. Within two months of Mayor O'Leary's inauguration, city government unveiled a focused plan for getting the blight problem under control. A key facet of the plan is the Police Department's new Blight Enforcement and Control Division, which can issue citations and clear the way for the city to clean the properties of landlords who have violated anti-blight ordinances.

One member of the division is Lt. Daniel Lauer. In the wake of an episode in which it took two months to track down a landlord who did not live in Waterbury and inform him that his property had become overrun by garbage, Lt. Lauer proposed an ordinance requiring absentee landlords to register their properties and keep up-to-date contact information and home addresses in a city database. The Board of Aldermen green-lighted the ordinance last spring.

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